Infinite Loop —

Apple announces flatter, sleeker iOS 7

iOS loses its bubbly skeuomorphism in favor of a more two-dimensional design.

A new version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 7, was announced at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The release will feature, among a number of changes, a departure from the bubbly, skeuomorphic design that has prevailed on both iOS and OS X for the last several years in favor of flatter, more angular design elements influenced by Apple SVP of Industrial Design Jony Ive.

The most front-facing part of the OS, the home screen, now has app icons that lack the dimension and gloss effect of previous versions. Design elements within the icon, like the musical note on the Music app icon, appear as a flat design flush with the background rather than a cutout like before. iOS 7 isn't doing away completely with dimensionality, as some text elements shown in the intro video still feature embossing, and Ive emphasized that the OS focuses on "depth and vitality."

The look of several key apps in iOS 7.

Many of the skeuomorphic touches are also gone from the OS, such as the textured paper in the iBooks app and the leather-bound elements in the Calendar app. Of the Game Center redesign, Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi stated, "we just ran out of green felt."

The design also features much more black and white in place of color. Overall, colors in the OS have been lightened, and the prevailing font has been slimmed down. The interface responds to motion and can move app icons on the home screen in parallax in relation to the background behind them.

The Control Center in iOS 7.

Folders look the same, but users can swipe right or left to see more items within.

Live animations also prevail in the OS, including on the lock screen and in a top-down view of weather information in various locations. Folders can now have multiple pages, and broadly speaking, the OS now allows users to swipe between nested menus and interfaces rather than using a soft back button. A notifications menu is now accessible from the lock screen (presuming there are no security measures in place).

A "Control Center" in iOS 7 swipes up from the bottom of the home screen, giving access to quick settings like WiFi on/off, airplane mode, and a flashlight. The OS will also integrate with the iCloud keychain that was announced during the OS X Mavericks portion of the WWDC keynote.

A new multitasking interface appears to feature windows showing active apps that are scrollable above their icons. iOS 7 notices which apps a user checks periodically throughout the day and will update them according to the usage pattern. The multitasking interface is pulled up by a "double tap" of the Home button. Push triggers will update apps when they pop up a notification rather than waiting for the user to actually open the app before pulling in new information.

AirDrop support will be added in iOS 7, which allows for direct file-sharing between iOS and mac OS X devices over WiFi. Information like contacts or photos can be shared over AirDrop using an ad-hoc connection. "No need to wander around, bumping your phone," said Federighi.

Swiping through Safari tabs in iOS 7.

Siri's answers can now include search results from Bing.

Updates to Safari include a new bookmark-browsing and reading list-browsing interface. Tabs now appear as a scrollable stack, which are no longer limited to 8 tabs.

The camera app now allows users to swipe between normal, square, and panoramic crops, as well as live photo filters. "Moments" within a revamped Photos app allow users to browse their photos by location and pull them into an album together. A new sharing interface also allows users to share video from within Photos, which can now be captured at 60 frames per second.

Siri has been updated with an optional male voice in iOS 7 in English, French, and German and now integrates search results for Wikipedia, Bing, and images. Siri will power an app called "iOS in the Car" that will live inside vehicles coming in 2014, where drivers can request directions, have messages read to them, or play music via a hands-free interface.

The App Store app has also been updated to pull in updates automatically—no more red badge nagging you to temporarily render your favorite apps inactive while they update.

A screenful of mostly unsubstantiated updates that we'll have to poke around the beta to explain.

The redesigned music app in iOS 7.

In terms of personal security, iOS 7 will also now allow users to block phone and FaceTime calls as well as messages, though Apple explained little about how this would work. iOS 7 will have an "activation lock" feature to act as a theft deterrent: if a thief tries to turn a phone off or wipe it, they will not be able to re-activate it.

iOS 7 will be available to developers in beta today. The iPhone 4 and later, iPad 2 and later, 5th-gen iPod touch and later, and the iPad mini will all have access to the update "later this fall."

Apple’s WWDC is still in progress, and we will update this article as details become available. For up-to-the-minute coverage, you can follow our liveblog.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

Tiles are exactly as you want them to be: live or dumb icons. You have the choice

Yeah, live desktop items seem like the sort of UI design that these platforms would eventually evolve to. I can see avoiding it back when screen resolutions were limited, but with the size and resolutions of screens today I don't see any benefit of forcing users to hunt through homogenous icons. I like being able to lay out my home screens to my needs. Makes me wonder if this decision might anything to do with limitations in their multi-threading implementation.

THe video does give a much better idea of the changes. I hate the basic looking icons, especially Safari. It's so clearly taking design hints from both Android and WP. And yet, in the usual Apple way, they've refined things and made it something more. I think in use all these design elements will work for the better. In static screenshots, you don't get the whole picture.

As a WP8 user, I like the much cleaner look and especially the typography but I'm not yet sure how I feel about the new icons.

And the transparency and perspective shifting looks really cool, but I have to wonder about the processing power needed. I mean, yeah mobile GPUs are plenty fast to render such effects (although I have to wonder about the iPhone 4, mine already feels slow on iOS 5), but I'm more concerned about how this will keep the GPU busier than it needs to be. Maybe I'm wrong, but when iOS 6 renders the home screen the GPU can just go to sleep until something happens, but now it has to constantly re-render the homescreen because the perspective will shift slightly from subtle movements you make while you hold the device, even if you don't do anything. And it sounds like it always keeps the sensors active too, but that might be the case normally too.

And with transparency, you simply have to render more, can cache less and have to apply that blur pixel shader.

I'm sure it's not a huge penalty, but Microsoft removed Aero glass from Windows 8 and one reason I believe was that a flat look is less taxing on the battery.

You can tell that the user interface design has been led by a designer in the same way as MS's phone. I don't know if I like it, but it's clever and coherent.

↓ Moderation: (show post)

As for the comments about copying Android or MS... How many times have you been blown by your missus? You go down on her once and you want to make a big song and dance about it? Ever considered just enjoying the moment?

As for the comments about copying Android or MS... How many times have you been blown by your missus? You go down on her once and you want to make a big song and dance about it? Ever considered just enjoying the moment?

Because Microsoft used to be criticized to death for copying the Mac. And Android used to be criticized to death for copying iOS.

Because Microsoft used to be criticized to death for copying the Mac. And Android used to be criticized to death for copying iOS.

Reports of the demise of Microsoft and Android have been greatly exaggerated. Both are still very much with us.

I think that the influence of Microsoft's phone UI is more obvious, but iOS7 doesn't look to be a carbon copy - it has its own distinct look (like I say, I'm not sure I actually like it). However if you stumble across 100s of pages of internal Apple documentation meticulously comparing and amending its OS to match another popular OS, we may see another round of court cases...

Right now is the first time ever I'm not envying iPhone users. I got Android phones earlier for idealistic reasons, not because I thought Android phones were better in any way other than being more "open" and more customization friendly.

But now... Google's new cards interface, even as it is currently, a slightly messy hybrid of classic Holo and cards UI, is more attractive to me than this, and if we're looking at the hardware I think both the HTC One and the Nexus 4 are prettier handsets. Play seems to have caught up with App Store and then there's the screen size, even iPhone 5 feels very much like a small smartphone from a year or two ago when you've gotten used to the Android flagships. So that's design, hardware and ecosystem no longer tipping strongly in favour of Apple.

If I could get any phone I wanted, an iPhone 5 with iOS 7 wouldn't be in the top 5, and oddly enough I think that's sad - probably a failed Android fanboy exam right there

What an ugly mess. And let's remove useful functionality like the memory buttons from the calc. I guess that's to create opportunities for app develops. The Clock app, currently displays both analog and digital world time, 7 analog only? Stocks and compass on black background. Yuck. Whats wrong with some color that's easy on the eyes? All the icons look amateurish. I guess that's the beauty of being simplistic. Hopefully the map app is better.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However, Apple missed the Live Tiles from WP8, arguably the best feature on the OS.

I like WP (obviously). I like Android. I used to like Apple (and still have an ancient, unsupported 3G since I lost my workplace 4S). I remember those heady days from 2007 where there was something completely new, and EVERYONE else had to catch up. Now we are talking about how Apple has "caught up" to everyone else. The day where Microsoft innovates more than Apple....it may actually be a sad day!

You can tell that the user interface design has been led by a designer in the same way as MS's phone. I don't know if I like it, but it's clever and coherent.

As for the comments about copying Android or MS... How many times have you been blown by your missus? You go down on her once and you want to make a big song and dance about it? Ever considered just enjoying the moment?

I guarantee, FAR more times than you have.....especially when I got her a nice, shiny new Nokia Lumia 920.

Because Microsoft used to be criticized to death for copying the Mac. And Android used to be criticized to death for copying iOS.

Reports of the demise of Microsoft and Android have been greatly exaggerated. Both are still very much with us.

I think that the influence of Microsoft's phone UI is more obvious, but iOS7 doesn't look to be a carbon copy - it has its own distinct look (like I say, I'm not sure I actually like it). However if you stumble across 100s of pages of internal Apple documentation meticulously comparing and amending its OS to match another popular OS, we may see another round of court cases...

Highly doubtful. Apparently you missed the part where Bing is now Siri's main search engine....that is HUGE for MS and Bing.

Is it just me or does the new skin on the iPod app look eerily reminiscent of the latest version of Google's Play Music? Did they both crib from Microsoft or just end up in the same place visually through pure chance?

Actually I'd say flat look is more of a MS Metro thing, Android only goes flat in recent versions, and the flatness is not complete as of 4.2, there are still bunch of little pseudo 3d all over the place.

Part of that is the simple fact that the modern smartphone has been around for 6+ years and is old news. Apple set the template for the contemporary smartphone with the original iPhone and iOS 1. Virtually every smartphone on the market is a variation of that basic design and UI.

Seriously? Have you ever looked at even one image of Windows Phone introduced in 2010, it can hardly be more different in visual style and usage than iOS or virtually all other OSes.

A touch of translucency on OS X is nice. The iOS 7 version looks too much like Aero Glass

I agree, OS X's translucency is at best helpful and at worse non-obvious. While Windows Aero's and iOS 7's translucency is more distracting/disorienting than helpful (especially the control center one), very strange that they would make such a mistake.

From the photos I've seen thus far it looks like a massive improvement. I'm really excited about this!

Seriously I can't believe we are looking at the same thing. It looks horrid to me. The icons are boring, featureless and monochromatic. If that wasn't bad enough the color scheme is all neon-pastel. It looks like a really bad Windows 8 knockoff.

The visuals are a, Massive step backwards.

I personally like the new design, because I'm a fan of minimalism, however I can see this interface having less discoverability than previous versions (something which Windows 8 suffered from too), especially for less technical, older users.

I'm more concerned however with the real OS features, like battery life, responsiveness and connectivity.

Recent iOS updates have had horrific battery issues and most people I know now can't get through their workday without recharging their iPhone 4s/5.

On top of this older devices have been sluggish with new versions - my iPhone 4 lost all its fluidity when upgraded to iOS 6. Thankfully I was able to downgrade to 5.11.

And there's been a slew of problems with holding WiFi connections etc, clogging up the Apple support forums (where interestingly, Apple never makes an appearance).

If they got these right, I'll call iOS 7 a success. If they got them wrong like they recently have, all the design tricks in the world, won't stop me switching platforms....

I like the iOS7 design. It really almost tempts me to buy an iPhone 5, and I really could see myself using many of the new features shown, including Siri. Integration with OSX is a plus since my infrastructure is mostly Apple kit (wireless, many Macbooks) but some of it is older and won't / can't run 10.8 or higher so iCloud is out. The thought of timely updates appeals as well.

There are two things stopping me though. Firstly the older kit that doesn't iCloud. I have Macs in use going back to a 1998 AGP G4 (used for gaming!). It bugs me iCloud doesn't at least work on the Intel kit except in VM's, so as a service, I only use iCloud by accident and Dropbox /Synology Cloudsync does the work. Secondly, Androids vastly superior (IMHO) sharing capabilities are missing. I think these are called "hints" and basically allow sharing of data between applications. I take a picture on my phone, tap the share button and can save the pic to Dropbox, or open it in QuickOffice, or Evernote Skitch etc. Maybe someone more familiar with both OS's can say if this is possible or not?

Can we start some kind of big petition to get Apple to put the buttons back in?

You know...buttons? Like, along with the touch screen and your fingers, the entire essence of the "multi-touch" interface that changed the world of mobile devices?

The buttons that I've had to explain to my mother every ten minutes because she's not used to thinking about little shaded globs as pushbuttons? The buttons that, unlike hardware buttons, manifest (and disappear) out of nowhere, and move around, and are often the only means by which the user discovers the functionality (or, options for action) that exist in unfamiliar computing situations?

They don't have to have shadows and highlights and gloss. The buttons that the original Macintosh team created (and Susan Kare designed) in the 1980s were as simple as could be, but they had uniformity and regularity (and modality) and you never mistook them for anything else. (And Microsoft followed suit.) Just like with an ATM touchscreen, you always understood, "at this moment, there are five things I can do...and I can 'push' or touch one of these five buttons to do it."

Now that's all gone. It's been gone for a while in Google Maps, and I can't stand it. There's an extra cognitive strain at every moment when I have to read a bunch of text labels and figure out logically which words are the "action words." Looking at the new iOS screens, I have the same reaction: at any given moment, I have to think in order to determine which spots on the screen will respond to my finger and make something happen.

It's all just a tremendous step backward. Even those awful Bang+Olufsen stereos are better, because, although the controls and knobs and indicators have been made invisible (in the name of "design"), they don't change over time...my stereo amplifier isn't going to suddenly get new functionality that I'll have to figure out by looking at an unfamiliar new control panel as happens all the time whenever you deal with a new App or a new scenario in an existing App.

Obviously they're going to do whatever they want and my opinion has no value (with Apple, even more than with other companies). But I wish there was some way to do something about it. Every single time I use my phone or iPad, there's going to be a tiny "performance hit" as my brain tries to figure out (contextually rather than visually) where the buttons are, and by the end of the day, cumulatively, it'll have been the equivalent of solving a geometry problem. (And my Mom's going to call me at least twice as often when she's gotten stuck on some options list she didn't realize that the word "Done" rendered in an ultra-light font in the corner of the screen is the way out).

Regardless of where the best ideas come from, Apple can put them all together like nobody else. --And that is a testament to where Apple excels: Combining hardware, software and services to produce best overall experience across the widest audience. Make no mistake: iOS 7 will be a hit because of that singular integration expertise Apple illustrates time and again.

It is called a "straw man" when you put forward an argument that your opponents never supported. For instance, if I say "all of the Android fans said they hated longer battery life, and now that Android phones are getting decent batter life suddenly it's a good thing", that would be a straw man. Not only is it untrue that "all" of the group felt that way, it's not even true that most or many did.

Not to say you can't find some Apple fanboy somewhere who liked skeumorphism, but it was widely criticized and cringed at by most Apple fans, at least in forums and reviews.

It is sad to see Apple lose focus, precision, passion, vision. The experience of this mirrors other horrible things like iTunes 11 (hidden and unfinished - horizontal menu probably only makes sense if you split iTunes into its distinct parts, or like ios, there's a second menu row), the two-colour scheme of the latest iPod, the fashionable, underwhelming Swedish railway iPad clock. Radical visual change, minimal improvement, hidden, random - not square (the new Mac Pro - square and not circle, the increased roundness of app icons), abstract (the new Mac Pro), rainbows - ugly. Change for the sake of change. Fashion. A tiny step forward, and a huge step backwards.

Even at Apple, there seems to be people who do not truly understand what skewomorphism is. Skewomorphism - fakeness - contrasts simplicity, purity, meaningfulness, naturalness, and appropriate realism, "backgrounds" and effects. Skewomorphism is bad by itself, but it can sort of lead to simplicity, purity. The best example of realism and purity is the exceedingly passionate, familiar, intimate, high quality experience iBooks app which replicated the Classics app. The realism adds another dimension to the app and takes full advantage of the device's capability, instead of being a glorified e-ink reader. There is also the iconic and standard-setting camera icon, which shows just the camera in full detail, and nothing more or less, nothing fashionable. Then there are the background ones like Notes, and the effects like the curtain opening of the Photo Booth app (and the background of full screen Photo Booth OS X version), the opening of "Ancestry" app. An example of fakeness is the stitched leather - realism where it doesnt belong, low quality. The new icons are inaccurate and unrepresentative, and tell less (or more) than what they do. The current icons are accurate, representative, truthful, and beautiful. This dimension thing fell in line with Job's vision of magical, immersive (not necessarily interactive), intimate, and full experience devices.

An app like Game Center may have a bit outdated and too conventional look, but there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

It is a good thing, and expected that Apple didn't use a traditional game controller for its icon. That is inflexible. It also doesn't reflect the experience on mobile, touchscreen devices. iOS 7's Game Center icon is abstract and unrepresentative.

Then there is the FaceTime icon. Does it revert back to its unsophisticated form?

Jobs had a tendency to go over-the-top in doing things. Overdone gloss may be a sign of arrogance, and it may have obscured the usual clarity of Apple products. This is not better.

The current default font Apple uses is beautiful and standard. The new system super-thin font is non-standard, inappropriate and strains eyes. Skinny, precise is always better than fat, loose, but this is not clear and understandable. The move away from textures and realism is backwards. Natural textures (metal, linen, wood) and appropriate, sophisticated, immersive realism is non-fashionable design. The move from gray to white is also inappropriate (eg. status bar). iOS 7 is fashionable design.

An idea: The iPad could still adopt many OS X elements and be much more sophisticated and consistent, like larger and more detailed icons. OS X is perhaps the best example of expertly designed, realistic, truthful, non-fashionable, detailed, and sophisticated icons. There are still many elements of the iPad that feel tacky and cheap, and don't offer a true tablet experience.

Looking back, I guess some of them do understand this, but it is horribly inconsistent, ununified, and lacking in vision. The limitations of hardware design and the lack of limitations for system software design could question Ive's role. Software is transformable - hardware is not.

Maybe they only understand the concept of purity/simplicity, but they fail in the execution. They dont quite understand the purpose of things, taking full advantages of something's capabilities, efficiency.

"Skeuomorphism" was first introduced in iOS 5, in line with the vision of the iPad. The purpose of a tablet is presentation and simulation. Skewmorphism is also part of full screen apps and their immersive-ness. The new camera icon can't figure out the difference between an app icon - which represents a complete combination of features, and a function button - a singular, inflexible function, which is like hardware. A sophisticated, distinctive software app icon v. a generic hardware function button. Software deserves focus, hardware doesn't. Appropriate, sophisticated, immersive, and most importantly - beautiful realism is the future of tablet and full-screen apps. It is part of perfectionism.

This breaks from "traditional" commodity indistinctive user interfaces. The post-PC era, as Steve Jobs called it.

"Skeuomorphism" is a huge misunderstanding. A huge misunderstanding of the entire philosophy of the current user interface design found in every Apple product for the last decade. It is like some people never understood how Apple icons and Apple design came to be, and their sophistication. Straightforward, exact, obvious, sophisticated. Purity in design, purity in art. iOS is a complete departure from the past without really applying understanding to the past.

There's a reason non-fashionable design is beautiful, sophisticated realism in animation and gaming - simulation. Eastern animation tends to be more detailed and realistic than Western animation - with the exception of Pixar. Gotta push the graphics, create new mechanics, create new dimensions.

Intuition is connecting things to real life things, real mechanics. Connecting things in an appropriate, sophisticated, and most importantly - beautiful way.

Purity in design is what set Apple apart from the competition, and put them way ahead in time and in sophistication. From the design of Apple stores to the design of OS X, Apple countinually set standards in non-fashionable, industrial design, and was way ahead of its time and the competition. Apple applied just right textures in its stores, and everything else. Fom the beautiful, perfect steel walls to the tiled "graphite" floors, everything was just right. Apple perfected look and feel. Purity is not generic, simplicity is.

It is like OS X Lion's "natural" scrolling - the appearance of intuition. It is not natural, simply because trackpads and touch screens are different things. They work differently. Eg. Difference in operating distance.

The appearance of simplicity, and not true simplicity - purity. Ive doesnt really understand the purpose of things. The new iPhone 5S is ugly and has a gaudy metallic ring. And the S isn't capitiziled for some reason. The aluminum used for the iPod touch and iPhone, and not stainless steel, looks tacky and backwards (hollow). The aluminum isn't even preserved in its natural colour — purity in design. Their preference for the white iPhone shows a misunderstanding as black is respectable and harmonious. iOS 7's calculator gets it wrong by not having its equals key large. Apple's home page should have no moving parts.

This change is very bold and reckless, and it is a huge step backwards. This is more about bringing in Ive's taste, style, and replacing the existing.